Then when the dawn was nigh, leopard-like, the Little One sought
her den.
She was most commonly under canvas; but when she was in town it was
at one with the proud independence of her nature that she rejected all
offers made her, and would have her own nook to live in, even though she
were not there one hour out of the twenty-four.
"Le Chateau de Cigarette" was a standing jest of the Army; for none was
ever allowed to follow her thither, or to behold the interior of her
fortress; and one overventurous Spahi, scaling the ramparts, had been
rewarded with so hot a deluge of lentil soup from a boiling casserole
poured on his head from above, that he had beaten a hasty and
ignominious retreat--which was more than a whole tribe of the most
warlike of his countrymen could ever have made him do.
"Le Chateau de Cigarette" was neither more nor less than a couple of
garrets, high in the air, in an old Moorish house, in an old Moorish
court, decayed, silent, poverty-struck; with the wild pumpkin thrusting
its leaves through the broken fretwork, and the green lizard shooting
over the broad pavements, once brilliant in mosaic, that the robe of
the princes of Islam had swept; now carpeted deep with the dry, white,
drifted dust, and only crossed by the tottering feet of aged Jews or the
laden steps of Algerine women.
Up a long, winding rickety stair Cigarette approached her castle, which
was very near the sky indeed.
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